United Front
by obsessedatopia
Summary: Stef and Lena confront their respective stance on Brandon's injury while also acknowledging their recent feeling of disconnect. My interpretation of a simple missing fight/talk scene in 2x02. *ONE SHOT*


**Alright this is a scene I was desperate to fill in from Monday's episode. The psychology around Stef and Lena's fight was driving me mad as I am usually Stef's number one champion (as you know) but something about this week I was struggling to justify. I don't really buy the interpretation that Stef cares more about Brandon as her bio kid, I really just think that's circumstantial based on the storylines the show focusses on, and I also don't think she sees Lena as less of Brandon's mother than herself, I really think she just has this desperation to be everything for all of her children - just like how she took it on herself to rescue Jesus and the way she handled the judge when it came to Callie. Naturally, I obsessed about it to the extent where I tweeted Megan Lynn - the writer (and a.k.a the BEST). As she always does, she obliged in giving her insight and it helped a lot to help me reconcile where Stef was coming from, even though I didn't like the way she handled some things (but then that's the point of imperfect characters, right? They're meant to make mistakes!). Anyhow, I sort of piled in Megan's explanation along with my own interpretation and this was the result. I know a few people wanted to see this scene (I know I did) so I hope I've done it some justice. I've tried to keep it simple. Thanks to _thesameguest _and _TheTBone_ for their help and also thanks to the several of you who I discussed this episode with. I've pulled in some of your reasoning too so hopefully this reflects parts of what many of us thought!**

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"Working hard again, huh?" Stef edged around the corner where Lena sat still furiously writing away in the pose that had become her norm. She looked up at Stef and gulped down, flicking her pen against the page before continuing to write.

"Well what can I say, I'm still applying for the job." she shrugged, nonchalant, scribbling away.

Stef took the frosty reply as a clear indication Lena was just as unresolved from their fight the night before as she was.

Seeing it was evident she was going to have to get the ball rolling, Stef meandered further into the room and perched herself on the edge of one of the armchairs. Lena watched her from the corner of her eye but tried to keep up her determined front.

"We are going to have to talk about this at some point, love." Stef spoke. There was still an ounce of grit in her voice but she was determined to come to a resolve. The overhang had been torturing her all day and there was too much going on in her mind to risk wedging an even bigger gap between herself and the person she needed most to be on her side. It was still met with silence although she could see Lena was wavering. "You know I value your opinion..."

"You just value Mike's more because he'll agree with you -" she replied frostily, cutting her off and finally looking up as Stef bit down on her lips.

"Lena, I know I could have done things differently but don't pretend I'm the only one to have acted alone." she whispered back as Lena placed her pen down, confirming that this was now fully engaged.

"You can't have it both ways, Stef. You can't make decisions with Mike and then expect me to keep a united front -"

"You were agreeing with me at breakfast - how was I supposed to know you wouldn't be on board?"

"Maybe by _asking_ me instead of interpreting a remark I made trying to talk through the options? I was talking through your angle, I didn't realise it was a binding decision." She paused. "This was something that needed to be _talked_ about together. You know that, Stef. This is an important decision and if you seriously respect me as Brandon's parent-"

"Of course I -"

"- _then_ I deserve as much of an input as Mike! Or more importantly any input at all." she powered through, despite Stef's widening eyes and frustrated protest. She was trying to keep a lid on her volume but unable to suppress the passion.

Stef squinted, the pace of her breathing increasing as the heat swelled in her ears, but she felt the lump in her throat that indicated Lena had a strong point. She shook her head and braced her forehead, pacing off her perch and spinning round to face her wife.

"You are right." she replied firmly as Lena's chest deflated to a less aggressive pose. "You are right." she repeated. "But you have to understand that this isn't an easy balancing act. I have you, Mike and Brandon to consider and it's not like I've not misfired with those in the past. I'm the one who has to try and figure out the best approach that won't upset anyone."

"Right, you're in the middle. I get it, but you looked me right in the eyes, Stef, and asserted the decision had been made. That's not balance, that's dictatorship! You didn't want to have to consider another input so you cut off any source of one."

Stef's eyes darted across Lena's urgent features as she tried to bring herself down from her whirlwind of emotion. The accusation, along with the fire behind Lena's eyes, cut right through. It was an expected reaction she had tried to avoid encountering the day before by staying steadfast in her resilience before it could be said, but in many ways trying to avoid it had made it even more true - and she knew it. She was conscious of not incurring Mike's backlash when it came to Brandon, and she could convince herself all she wanted that was justification for going to him first, but at the same time she was also conscious that there would be one from Lena. She respected the opinion of both of them but deep down she knew there was only one of them she knew had the power to sway her decision - and this was a decision she didn't want to be swayed on.

"I can't let him risk it, Lena." she finally conceded. It wasn't as plain as saying her approach had been wrong, but it was clear in her eyes that what she meant. She wasn't open to this as an outcome and she would rather put her foot down than be in a position where she had to consider, but still reject, Lena's stance. "Brandon is sixteen. He's impulsive and you have to admit he hasn't exactly proven his decision making ability." she put her hand on her chest as her tone grew more desperate. "When he screws up we can tell him as much as we want that it was his bad choices but what kind of parents are we if we keep letting him stumble into them?" She pleaded, a mixture of frustration with both her own guilt and the situations that had arisen from her son's transgressions.

"I understand that, Stef, but you can't just cut me out when you think I'm going to disagree with you. Or the kids for that matter! We need to guide them." Lena replied firmly, although it was clear she was softening. She could see the pain in her wife's eyes and knew that any wrongdoing was coming from a place of extreme love.

Stef breathed deeply through her nose and took her place next to Lena, notably closer than when she had first arrived.

"Guide, yes. But telling them it should be their decision isn't right either - not until they've proven they can make them and honestly, I think Brandon needs our control more than ever."

"You can't control -"

"No, clearly I can't." Stef at least controlling the conversation in her own defiance. "If we could control him he wouldn't have been in a position where he could get beaten up in the first place. Our son went down a very dangerous path right under our noses. If we'd have put our foot down about him staying in the house -"

"Then what? He wouldn't have rebelled?" Lena reasoned seeing Stef's remorse for how things had unfolded once again surfacing. This had been a common theme ever since the situation with the fake IDs so many months before. Despite also feeling a share of the responsibility, Lena had always been able to detach herself more easily than her passionate wife. "Honey, he stole that money before Callie came home, whether we want to believe that or not. He didn't go out of control because we let him move out."

"Yeah well maybe we should have handled the Callie situation better too then. I don't know, grounded him for longer -"

"Grounding him didn't work -" Lena interrupted once again, determined not to have this same re-hashing of decisions that was becoming too much of a crutch for her wife's mental self-flagellation. "The point is I think we need to work with him. Maybe if we'd have sat down and talked the Callie situation through then he would have been more co-operative. Maybe we need to learn from that."

"We tried that Lena. He was unbending!" Stef responded, equally as defensive of her own methods despite her wife's expertise in teen psychology. "I'm not saying we can't do a bit of both but we can't remove our enforcement. We cant rely on our kids being able to negotiate - we're they're parents!"

"Then why can't we have a bit of both with this?" Lena suggested sternly as Stef sucked on her top lip, diverting her eyes.

"I'm not going to risk it, Lena. This is too important. What if it backfires and he turns around and blames us for letting him? I know I will, and I'm not going to gamble something as important as this for some parenting experiment to see if we get it _right_ this time."

"Then we reduce the risk." Lena shrugged. "What's the rush? We get a second opinion, we get statistics we can work with and then we re-think."

Stef chewed her lips around, mulling it over.

"We're not making a final decision, Stef, we're just postponing the final one that we can make more informed." Once again, Stef swilled around the words in her mouth. She was trying to hard to keep a grip on this situation. She had felt so powerless over so many of her children's actions - left with only the consequences of what she saw as her negligence in the first place. With everything happening with Mike and Ana she was feeling that grip slipping once again, not to mention being unable to give Callie the security she needed with her adoption. The feeling in the pit of her stomach was determined that she would not drop the only ball she was still holding. At the same time though, even she had to face the reality that as hard as she wanted to, compromise had to be inevitable if she didn't want to push both her son and wife away.

"Okay." Stef finally replied, licking her bottom lip. "We will talk about it and we will not shut the idea off. But I want it to be clear to Brandon that we are still in charge of the final call. You may have already given your support but I'm not going to be made out as the bad guy if the compromise doesn't end how he wants it." She asserted in a final demand of her surrender. Lena took the remark with a nod, clasping her fingers on her knee.

"That's fair. We stay united in compromise. And...for what it's worth, you're right. I shouldn't have gone behind your back. I just didn't want him to feel we were all against him. We both could have done things better."

Stef nodded silently, running her tongue along her teeth. She took a deep breath and placed her hand over Lena's squeezing them affectionately as both a sign of peace and as a comfort to herself. Right now she was rattled by so many things and the sweet serenity of that comfort, even momentarily, was something she craved even with her unbending nature when it came to her convictions.

Feeling Lena's hands rearrange to reciprocate, she looked down into her wife's eyes and a wistful smile crept across her face, both with guilt and sadness among the relief. Sensing her feelings, Lena was able to verbalise what was going through both of their minds.

"I don't like this disconnection, Stef." She spoke gently. "We haven't fought like this in a very long time."

Stef nodded gently, her chest rising as she took another long inward draw of air through her nose.

Unable to find the words to air her own feelings, let alone Lena's, she went with her instincts and kissed Lena's head softly, settling back to grip her a little tighter.

"Maybe we need to take a step back from things. You know with the baby and with all of this stuff with the kids - I think we're losing our focus on us and how can we provide them with the support they need when we can't support each other? We need to take some time together to fix this, Stef." Lena suggested, understanding Stef's wordless acknowledgement.

"What do you mean, exactly?" Her eyebrows creased as Lena shrugged.

"A little time away, when things settle a little more. Get my Mom in to watch the kids."

Stef nodded softly, loving the sound of the idea but still nervous of believing if it was actually possibile. Right now it seemed almost too good to be true.

"You know when the baby comes things are only going to get crazier. I think..it is really _important_ for us to try and have some time alone before that happens. I just don't want this to get away from us." Lena pleaded, both with her eyes and her words. Stef looked on and couldn't help but feel herself succumbing, as she always did every time she looked peacefully into her wife's eyes. This time however it was a surrender that she was happy to give.

"I think that sounds like something we should definitely do." She smiled as Lena returned it. "How about we go speak to Brandon now then we have a look in the diary."

Lena's smile grew wider as she closed her eyes, Stef kissing her forehead again. They held the pose for a moment, feeling the surge of strength they both got when they were united, even if ultimately they were united in understanding each other's differences. They both breathed deeply, inhaling each other's familiar scents. The gentle comfort Lena got from the tiring perfume that lingered around Stef's neck and likewise the aroma of Lean's shampoo that swirled through Stef's nostrils. They respectively provided the sweet smell of safety, strengthening them with their feeling of belonging whenever they embraced. Finallypulling apart, Lena squeezed Stef's hand, still clapsed around her own.

"Shall we go up now?" Stef asked hopefully as Lena stretched out.

"And take me away from all the fun of laying out how I'd plan next year's cafeteria budget?"

"Oh I hope you bring that on our trip, it sounds like heaven." Stef teased, pulling her wife up off the sofa and leading her towards the stairs.

Feeling a slight tug back, Stef paused and turned as Lena took her other hand, pulling her back for one last hug. Willingly falling into it, Stef gripped tightly, her eyes closing. She hated feeling she was losing her hold but at the same time there were holds she wanted never to slip out of either.

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**OK - there you have it! I would love to know people's thoughts/your interpretations! Of course, as always, I'm open to any requests for other scenes people may like to see. I am thinking about how to do some of the other ones that have been suggested in my other one-shots so keep an eye out (or stick a follow on!). Oh and it's been great meeting so many of you over on Twitter! Fosters fans are THE BEST. **


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